


the white devil in the jungle

by rangerhitomi



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Backstory, Child Abuse, Colonialism, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 02:33:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Never go into the jungle, his mother always warned. It was dangerous there and the creatures were to be feared and respected, for some were protectors.</p><p>Never go into the jungle, his father always warned. It was dangerous there and the creatures were to be feared and hunted, for some were abominations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the white devil in the jungle

Little Durbe is seven when he hears something calling him to the jungle. He can’t explain what, or why; there is something out there, something that wants him.

But he doesn’t go, because it’s not safe, and he is a small boy, so he sleeps at night and wonders if it’s the protectors or the abominations that are talking to him.

\---

Little Durbe is ten when his father takes him into the jungle for the first time, and Durbe is scared.

 _Stay with me_ , his father warns, because the devil’s children lurk in forests.

The other light-skinned men don armor that looks nothing like that of the men in the village where Durbe lives with his mother and pick up swords that only they are allowed to have. But Durbe doesn’t have any armor, or a sword, because he is too little. They give him a small knife, and that is all.

He’s heard the voices for three years and when he’s told his father, he had been beaten – _I’ll rid you of the devil, boy_ – until he gasped through his tears that he heard nothing anymore and his father was satisfied, but it’s a lie, and he doesn’t want his father to know that he had lied. So he treks through the forest next to the other men, next to the father that had given him light skin, so unlike his mother’s, and light hair and light eyes, and his father says that God had blessed Durbe and that he would be a soldier one day. Durbe smiles nervously and looks up at the others and wishes he could be spared from the life of a soldier, because they seem so confined and unhappy, and perhaps they think it’s their duty to their king of a far-away place to conquer the land, but Durbe just wants to be free.

 _I need your help_ , a voice calls to him, and it’s like a familiar friend in his mind, the voice he has heard since he was too young to accompany the others into the jungle, but he furrows his brow and tries to think back a response that he _couldn’t_ help, because his father thought he was communing with the devil.

He feels one of the soldiers rap him sharply on the back of the head; he winces and looks up at his father, who is scowling.

“Are you paying attention?”

Durbe blurts an apology and bows his head in shame and tries to listen to his father but the voice is drowning him out and Durbe is horrified because he can’t do as his father asks and he knows he will pay for it.

\---

He’s face down on his furs and his mother is applying a paste to the lesions on his back. He feels dishonorable for not being able to please his father, and fears he will not be taken back into the jungle again. His father had punished him accordingly for being disrespectful and not listening; this was still less punishment than he would have received had he told his father he was still hearing voices. People had been killed for that sort of thing.

“Be strong, my child,” his mother murmurs in her tongue, and she speaks it only to comfort Durbe. “You will be a handsome, selfless, and brave warrior one day.”

Durbe wonders how that’s possible, because for now he’s a small, weak, frightened boy.

\---

Night falls and the pull is greater than ever. Durbe’s body is still sore as he slips from the pelt and pulls on his boots. It’s dangerous in the jungle, he knows, but the greater danger is getting caught going in there. He doesn’t know why, but a feeling in his heart tells him to go. He’ll be safe when he gets into the jungle.

Fortune smiles on him this night, as the two guards nearest Durbe’s tiny home are arguing and don’t notice him scale the wall and hop down to the other side. The impact jars his ankles, but it’s worth the price, and he slips into the jungle.

The weak light from the moon and stars doesn’t enter the jungle, and it’s darker than anything he’s ever experienced. For a terrified moment, he stands there, listening to the quiet chirps, the soft rustles, and the occasional growl coming from every direction at once. He hopes the smell of the blood on his back and clothing doesn’t attract something that might see him as its next meal.

He doesn’t know which way he’s going, but the voice directs him, and he points his feet in the direction he feels strongest, and walks.

\---

Durbe walks for a long time, so long he can barely keep track. He’s tired and scared, but nothing dangerous has touched him here, and he begins to wonder if the devil was luring him after all. Stifling trees open up and the moon finally finds its way into a clearing. Durbe flinches at the light, though it is still weak, but his eyes adjust enough to see the most beautiful creature he has ever laid eyes on lying on the jungle floor.

It looks like a young colt, if a colt had the wings of a falcon, and its coat is pure white. It moves its head and sees Durbe and panics; wings flap lopsidedly as it tries to stand, but Durbe catches a glint of red under one of its wings and sees that it’s injured.

He steps closer, despite the creature’s weak attempts to get away, and reaches out a hand in a gesture of comfort. “I’m here to help you,” he whispers in his mother’s tongue of comfort. It seems more appropriate than his father’s language of conquest. The more he looks at the creature, the more convinced he is that it is not a creature of the devil. How can something so beautiful and pure be evil? “Have you been calling for me?”

The creature stops trying to fly away, though it prances warily the closer Durbe gets. There’s warmth in his fingertips as he reaches out and touches the creature’s pure white muzzle, and it goes very still. It can’t speak, but Durbe feels its answer in his heart as it stands slowly and stares Durbe in the eyes with unusually green eyes of its own.

_Please help me._

The creature’s legs collapse in a tangled heap; Durbe falls to his knees next to it and places his hand under the injured wing. The wound in its side looks worse than Durbe had first thought, though it doesn’t seem to be bleeding anymore – maybe it happened a day or two ago? – but when the creature moves, the scabbing cracks and droplets of blood appear.

“Be still,” Durbe says soothingly, stroking the creature’s neck, and it looks at him as it stills. Durbe doesn’t know what to do – his father had not taught him to be a healer – but he remembers the bandages on his own body, still sticky with his mother’s salve, and he pulls his shirt off.

“What’s your name?” Durbe says through gritted teeth as he struggles to peel the bandages from his back.

The creature contemplates him for a moment. _I am called Mahha_ , it says finally. _What do they call you?_

Durbe nods and flinches, pulling off the first bandage. “I’m Durbe.” He places the bandage over Mahha’s wound. It sticks well to Mahha’s coat. “I’m sorry that this is all I can do for now.” The wounds on his own back, exposed to the humid air, sting. But Mahha needs the bandages more than he, so he continues to peel them off and place them over Mahha’s wound.

Mahha nudges Durbe’s hand with his muzzle and gazes at the boy. _It is very kind of you._

\---

It seems that barely a moment after Durbe tries to drift back to sleep, he is woken. He is so tired that he barely remembers the trek back through the jungle, only that the lightening sky had made it easier to find his way back. Without his bandages, his wounds leak blood and water through his shirt, and his mother scolds him for taking them off in the night. He accepts his mother’s chastisement and murmurs an apology, and when his father comes to the hut to give the boy one more chance, Durbe has to hide his discomfort.

They’re in the jungle again and Durbe is beginning to nod off. He wonders how Mahha is faring today. He makes the mistake of inquiring whether there are creatures that look like winged horses in the soldiers’ homeland, and soon every one of them is staring at him.

His father grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him, demanding to know where Durbe saw such a thing. Durbe flinches at the pain left over from yesterday’s punishment, but he can’t truthfully answer that he entered the jungle alone at night, nor can he answer that he heard it call to him. So he tells his father in a shaking voice that he’d dreamed about it instead.

But it was only the devil was speaking to him through his dreams, and Durbe falls asleep that night clutching his bruised face and crying.

\---

He keeps his mouth shut and his attention rapt each time he enters the jungle with the soldiers now, and he gives short answers – yes, father; no, father – but he keeps hearing Mahha call to him and he prays to the jungle’s protectors that Mahha will be safe. He tries to call back that he will come when he can to the creature’s side, but he doesn’t know if his message gets through.

\---

Two weeks pass until his body is strong enough to make the trek through the trees again, and this time he packs some of his mother’s ointments and fresh bandages and water. He properly judges the distance from the top of the wall to the ground this time, so the drop doesn’t hurt his ankles.

He closes his eyes and lets Mahha’s voice carry him through the black jungle, feet dancing around roots and vegetation and nests of deadly insects or snakes, and when he comes to the clearing, Mahha is waiting.

_It has been a long time._

Durbe falls to his knees next to the creature and pulls out the water pouch. “It is difficult to escape my father.”

Mahha watches him intently as Durbe wets the filthy bandages matted to Mahha’s coat and gently pulls them off, tossing them to the ground. The wound is healing well, and Durbe can properly clean it and heal it now, he hopes. _Is your father one of the pale-skinned ones?_

The young boy doesn’t answer at first. He smears the salve over the wound and wraps it tightly. “Yes. You have seen them?”

Mahha’s eyes are sad now, and Durbe feels the pain in his heart. _I came from a land far away, where the pale-skinned ones killed my father._

“I’m so sorry,” Durbe whispers, and he presses his face into Mahha’s neck. He doesn’t know what to say.

Mahha nudges Durbe’s head with his muzzle. _My mother and I fled to this land when I was barely old enough to fly. The pale-skinned ones…_

Durbe knows what had happened without Mahha finishing the tale. His heart throbs with the pain of Mahha’s loss. “I’m one of them,” he whispers, voice cracking.

Mahha nuzzles Durbe again. _No, you are better than them. I can feel your kindness in my heart._

\---

By the age of twelve, Durbe had learned how to use a sword. He wasn’t good at it at first; he was clumsy and it was heavy. But he was determined to prove himself, to become a warrior.

He’s still shorter – much shorter – than the other soldiers, and the other boys his age, but when they venture into the jungle on hunting parties, Durbe knows it better than any of them.

For two years, he had snuck out to visit his friend Mahha in the clearing; sometimes Mahha would tell Durbe of the land he had come from, and Durbe would listen with a sorrowful heart at the wars and disease and hatred that ravaged Mahha’s homeland. Other times he would simply curl up with Mahha in their clearing, listening to the sounds of the jungle, which are no longer frightening to Durbe. He has an unusual presence that keeps danger away.

Mahha is growing, too; he is now the size of a full-grown horse, and his wings are soft and wide and powerful, and he takes Durbe above the trees sometimes.

The first time is terrifying; all Durbe can see below them are lush, leafy treetops. In the distance there are mountains, capped with white, and Durbe wonders what that white is, so Mahha takes him.

 _In my homeland,_ Mahha explains as they go, _I am called a Pegasus, a creature of myth._

“My father thinks you’re one of the devil’s children,” Durbe calls over the cold, rushing wind.

Mahha just laughs.

The mountains are so cold that Durbe’s fingers and toes go numb almost immediately, and the wind bites into his face, but Mahha wraps a wing around his body to shield him from the cold and Durbe is grateful. He picks up some of the white stuff, which is cold and wet and crumbles in his hand, but it’s also… soft.

_Snow._

Durbe puts some in his mouth, and though it melts into water on his tongue, it is the purest water he has ever tasted.

He looks up at the sky and sees the universe.

\---

A plague sweeps through his village and Durbe holds his mother’s hand, trying desperately to bring her fever down, but she’s too sick and succumbs to the disease, just like half the other villagers. Durbe holds her close and whispers to her in their tongue that he will be a great warrior.

But he will be a true warrior, a loyal one, and he can’t fulfil his true destiny trapped in this village.

\---

His father catches him climbing the fence one night and Durbe finds himself pinned to the ground with a knife to his throat. He is accused of witchcraft and communing with the devil and his father tells him that the plague was God’s way of cleansing the village from Durbe’s sins. Durbe is terrified and cries out for help, or tries to, because no sound will leave his throat, and he closes his eyes-

-the weight leaves his body and he opens his eyes to his father shouting, waving his knife at something in the distance and it’s…

_Flee, my friend._

“Mahha…”

Durbe can’t move; his heart is throbbing and he’s shaking too much, but the sight of the men chasing Mahha into the jungle gives him enough strength to roll over and drag himself to his knees.

A true warrior will do anything for his friends, Durbe tells himself, and he stumbles toward the jungle.

\---

His legs take him to the clearing on instinct now, though twice he accidentally steps on an ant pile and has to stumble for a pool of water to drown them in, but not before he is covered in tiny, painful bites.

“Mahha?” he calls out softly, because he can’t feel the tug anymore, and he’s hit with the sudden, horrible thought that-

-no, Mahha will be there. Mahha is always there for him.

He enters the clearing and Mahha is not there. With a whimper of sorrow, Durbe falls to the ground and his weariness takes him.

\---

_Durbe._

He doesn’t stir. His knee-high pants are torn and his legs ache and itch from the bites; he is so weary he doubts he’ll be able to move for days.

_We were drawn to each other, Durbe. It is fate._

He finally opens his heavy eyes and his heart clenches with relief. “Mahha…”

Mahha nuzzles him. _You have great things in store, Durbe. Will you allow me to accompany you?_

He can’t answer; his throat is dry. Mahha understands his unspoken hesitation.

_You’re too great a boy to rot here._

So twelve-year-old Durbe drags himself on the back of a creature of legend and they fly; where they are going he does not know, or care, just that it is not here.

\---

They fly for days, and Durbe is starving and exhausted and scared; Mahha seems to be able to fly at high speeds for long periods of time. They land periodically on tiny islands, and there’s sometimes food along the shores, but Durbe is too frightened to venture much deeper. These are not his trees.

One day they fall asleep on some hot sand, with Mahha sheltering Durbe’s fair skin from the blazing sun, and when Durbe wakes with a start, he is being dragged to his feet by the arm. He cries out for Mahha, but his faithful companion’s wings are bound and Mahha cries out to Durbe. There is nothing he can do as they are ushered on board a ship and sail to the west.

\---

They speak a strange language, and sometimes they speak to him; he mumbles back responses, first in his mother’s language and then in his father’s, but they don’t understand him any more than he understands them.

They strip him of his filthy, tattered clothing and force him to wear a strange material that is too thin to keep him warm; it covers his chest while leaving his shoulders exposed, and his legs below his knees are bare. He feels exposed, and his heart burns to see Mahha again.

He finds himself on soft rugs, made of a material Durbe had never seen the likes of before, kneeling before a man in a chair of gold. A young boy stands to one side, a young girl to the other; Durbe thinks they must be perhaps nine or ten years old.

The man speaks, waves his hand, and Durbe feels the warmth in his heart before he hears Mahha’s whickering. He makes to stand but one of the men who had brought him here pushes him back down.

Durbe reaches for Mahha and calls out his name, and he can feel Mahha whisper his name through his heart, and before he realizes it, the boy from next to the throne has taken his hand and is standing over Durbe.

He looks up into the boy’s eyes, which are looking down at Durbe curiously, and Durbe tries to explain. “Mahha is my friend.”

The boy’s eyebrows furrow as he looks at the Pegasus. “Mach?”

It’s close enough, Durbe thinks, and nods encouragingly. “I’m Durbe.”

They look at each other again, and the boy’s eyes are the bluest Durbe has ever seen. “Nasch,” he says finally, and walks over to Mahha. Without another word, he unties the ropes binding Mahha's wings to his body, and everyone watches in awe as Mahha trots to his friend's side and wraps Durbe in his wings.


End file.
